Inheritance
by Mystwalker
Summary: When Zack found out that Aerith was having a girl, he was prepared to protect his little princess. Unfortunately for him, it looked like fate had other plans. Zack x Aerith, hints of Sephiroth x Cissnei, semi-AU. Oneshot.
1. Chapter 1

**Inheritance**

**By:**

**Mystwalker**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Final Fantasy VII. All OCs are mine, though.

**A/N: **Related to my **Another Side AU**, but you don't need to have read that to understand this story.

XxXxX

Zack remembered the day Aerith told him they were having a girl. He had just gotten back from dropping off his sons at Elmyra's for the weekend. The boys were five and three at the time, and while they weren't so bad separately, together they were a force of nature. He was forever having to clean up behind them, or jump in and forcibly pull them apart when they decided to go at each other's throats. He remembered thinking how nice it would be to have a little Aerith running around the house, sweet, kind, and gentle.

Looking back on that day, Zack smiled.

_That _illusion had shattered fairly quickly.

It wasn't that Arielle Ifalna Fair wasn't nice, or sweet, or kind. But when he pictured having a daughter back then, he hadn't pictured someone quite like Ari. Not that he was complaining. He wouldn't have it any other way.

XxXxX

The first time he realized that Ari wasn't quite like other little girls, she had been three. He had taken her to the playground in Edge, to see the flowers that Aerith had planted. She had been a cute little thing then, small, with long, straight black hair that she had definitely inherited from him, and big bright blue eyes that, color aside, were undoubtedly Aerith's. He still remembered the dress she was wearing, a lacy, white summer dress. She had been looking at the flowers intently, while holding on tightly to a rag doll that her grandmother had said used to belong to her mother, when another child came and took it from her. He was a lot bigger than her, probably about seven or eight, and Zack had quickly rushed to the scene, fully prepared to stop the waterworks, when Arielle turned around, all 33 inches of her, and slugged the would-be thief in the gut. That was also the day that Zack remembered his mako enhancements were inheritable.

Needless to say, she got her doll back, and Zack was fairly impressed.

After that, it had been a constant stream of incidents, mostly revolving around Ari's incredible ability to find trouble. She quickly rose to ringleader status in the small group of AVALANCHE kids about her age. If someone was out there goading the others into running off in search of ill-advised adventures, it was probably Ari. Zack lost count of the number of times he had had to go out across the city to go bring her back home, because she and her friends were playing a game of pirates vs. ninjas in one of the scrap piles from old Midgar (_"But I was _winning_, Daddy!") _or something like that, nor could he really forget the day a fourteen-year-old Ari had crashed Cloud's son's motorcycle into Cid's new plane because she was "so sure I could jump that". Cid had been nearly apoplectic. _  
_

"It's like Yuffie all over again," grumbled the airship pilot, once he had calmed down somewhat and Ari had been sent to her room for the rest of the night.

Zack hmm'ed in response, his arms folded as he looked out at the wreckage of the plane. He couldn't really agree with that. There were similarities, sure-Arielle was brash, headstrong, excitable, and entirely too confident for her own good, but Yuffie was sneaky. She deliberately went out of her way to circumvent the rules. Sure, she usually had good intentions, but at the bottom of it all, she was still a ninja and a thief. Ari didn't have a dishonest bone in her body. She barreled her way through life, not because she wanted anything out of it, but just because she wanted to see more, to know more, to feel more. She was reckless, but she was loyal, protective over her friends, and always ready with a smile or a joke to cheer up whoever needed it. And she knew when she was in the wrong. While Yuffie would probably have grumbled about how 'unfair' they were all being and would have found a way to sneak out of her room, he would have bet any amount of money that Ari was driving herself nuts in there, trying to think of a way to make it up to Cid and Cloud. In all honesty, she reminded him...

...Well, she reminded him a lot of himself.

Which was why he wasn't surprised-worried, but not surprised-when Ari approached him one day when she was fifteen and mentioned that she had been thinking about joining the WRO. Gaia had calmed down a lot since Meteorfall in many ways, but the damage to the land wasn't something that they had been able to heal in one generation, and the situations with monsters had been steadily getting worse and worse. There was a new crop of heroes this generation, kids who got famous fighting monsters instead of people. They weren't publicized the same way they had been during the Wutai War-Reeve wasn't big on that sort of thing-but he had still heard Ari talking about them. From the day she turned twelve, he knew that it was only a matter of time.

Thankfully, the WRO hadn't accepted kids for years, _way _before Ari was even born. So when she approached him, he knew that he had time-three years of it, in fact, to make sure that she knew what she was getting into. Reeve's organization was no SOLDIER, but it was still a military, and with the world the way it was, fighting was par for the course.

"It's not all heroics, you know," he said, walking with her that night on their way back from the old Sector 5 Church. He folded his arms. "It's pretty tough out there."

"I know."

She was walking ahead of him, her hands at her sides. At fifteen, Ari was a little tall for her age, dressed in a short-sleeved black shirt and a pair of dark-colored shorts. She still wore her hair long, sweeping down almost to her waist, but lately she kept it in a loose braid, tying it off at the end with a black ribbon. Her eyes shone as she looked out at the city of Edge in front of them, a bright mako blue just a shade darker than his own. Her expression was serious, her eyes seeming a little far off.

Zack sighed. "Why do you want to go?" he asked.

"Because I can," said Ari. "I can do something. There aren't a lot of us out there, you know."

He did know. It wasn't just that children of SOLDIERs were rare, it was also that not all of them inherited the enhancements, and when they did, it wasn't always complete. Kids like Ari, who had inherited nearly the full set of enhancements, weren't exactly very common nowadays.

Not a kid anymore, he reminded himself, looking at her. Fifteen already. At fifteen, he was already a SOLDIER 2nd Class, with several Wutai War battles under his belt.

Gaia, had they really been that young?

He stepped forward, clapping her on the shoulder. "Well, you've got three years. Think about it. Whatever you want to do after that...you know we'll always be here."

"Mm," she said, looking away.

There had been something else bothering her then, but Zack hadn't noticed. He had always imagined, as the months went by, that she was still thinking over what he had said on their walk back, some small bit of introspection. She certainly had a lot to think about. He didn't think at the time that she was thinking about something else. Looking back, he wondered how he had ever missed the signs.

Reality came in a flash of silver and green.

He and Ari had been walking through the streets, carrying a couple of boxes Barret had sent with Cloud for Zack's old motorcycle, when she suddenly stopped, and he caught her eyes beginning to wander. He followed her gaze, his eyes landing on a familiar figure standing on the street corner, dressed in a neatly-pressed uniform, with short silver hair and bright green eyes. He was smiling and chatting with one of the street vendors, his back towards them.

"Huh," said Zack. "Aidan's back."

"Yeah," said Ari distractedly. She looked back at him. "Um, you mind if I say hi?"

Zack shrugged. "Knock yourself out," he said, setting down the box he was carrying. Ari set down her box as well, running up to him. She reached out with a hand, playfully shoving him on the shoulder as she drew up in front of him. Zack rubbed at his sore shoulders-he really _was _getting old-and leaned back against the wall to watch, a small smile on his face.

"Hey there, stranger," she said, grinning. "Long time no see."

Aidan turned towards her, blinking in surprise. The young nineteen-year old was quickly proving himself to be every bit the prodigy on the battlefield that his father had been, but there was something softer about him. He was no less intense, no less determined, but he wasn't quite as...cold. Zack had known for a while that that kid would be going places, so it surprised no one when he joined the WRO a year and a half ago, and quickly began to excel.

"Ari?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here. What are _you _doing here?" she asked. "Thought they had you shipped out to Nowheresville, fighting monsters."

"Mideel," said Aidan, accepting his package from the vendor with a nod of thanks. "And I'm on leave. We cleaned it out."

"Already?" asked Ari, blinking. "Thought the place was infested with monsters, or something like that."

"It was," said Aidan, nodding once. "But it wasn't as hard as they said it would be, once we found their nests."

"Huh. You're gonna have to tell me all about it sometime."

"Maybe I will," said Aidan, turning fully towards her. "I'll be here a little while."

"Then how about we spar," said Ari. "For old times' sake."

He tilted his head, seemingly amused by her eagerness. They both used swords, but to Zack's knowledge, Ari had never beaten him in a spar. That didn't stop her from trying.

"You know..." said Aidan, smiling slightly at her. "I'd actually like that."

"Tomorrow at...hmm...five?" asked Ari. "The usual place?"

He nodded. "I'll be there," he said, walking off. Ari watched him go, and Zack frowned, taking note of the scene in front of him. Arielle and Aidan had known each other for years, of course, all of the AVALANCHE kids did, but Aidan was four years older than her, and growing up, had always hung out with the older group of kids. He and Ari had only become close when she decided she wanted to learn how to fight, and needed a training partner. He'd always had the sense that Ari admired him, but he'd written it off as just her being impressed with his skill. Most of her friends were guys-the thought of something else hadn't really crossed his mind.

But there was admiration. And then there was the way she was looking at him now, as he was walking away.

"What was that?" Zack asked her, as they put the boxes away in the garage.

She was smiling to herself, her face slightly flushed. If he hadn't known to look for it, he would have blamed it on the heat. "What was what?" she asked innocently.

"That thing with Aidan," said Zack. "Back there."

"Oh, we're gonna spar tomorrow," she said, purposefully stepping away from him and stretching.

"Not that," said Zack, frowning at her. He didn't really know what to say, so he decided not to beat around the bush. "You like him?"

"No, what gave you that idea?" asked Ari, a little too quickly.

The flush on her face gave her away.

That night, Aerith scolded him for his bluntness. "You can't just go out and _ask _her who she likes," she said, glowering at him from over the kitchen counter.

"Well, what was I _supposed _to do?" asked Zack, scratching the back of his head. "Ari's never had a crush before-she's always talked to me about everything!"

"She isn't going to talk to you about _everything_, Zack," said Aerith, sighing. "Sometimes a girl wants to keep things to herself."

"She never used to," grumbled Zack.

Honestly, it had been a while since he'd really thought of Ari as a girl. Growing up, she had always wanted to do everything with him, whether it was fixing the bike, or repairing the roof, or cleaning up the flower wagon. He knew she was growing up. He'd just never stopped to consider...

She really was becoming a young woman, wasn't she? He ran a hand through his hair. Gaia, he _so _wasn't ready for this.

"She loves you," said Aerith, smiling gently at him. She leaned up on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "And you'll always be her dad."

There was that. And, Zack decided with a resigned sigh, she could do a whole lot worse than Sephiroth's son. He actually liked that kid. And he knew if Aidan tried anything funny, Cissnei would kill him before Zack could even start.

To no one's surprise, when she turned eighteen, Arielle Fair enlisted in the WRO. To everyone's surprise, at the completion of her training, she turned down an offer from Aidan to join his unit, now assigned to the very edge of the attacks. She instead picked up a minor assignment.

In Nibelheim. The place where it all began.

"Why?" asked Zack, the night before she left, sitting on the roof with her and looking up at the stars. She was unusually pensive tonight, dressed as she was in her new uniform with her knees pulled up to her chest, her new broadsword fastened to her back. He knew how much that offer meant to her. He'd seen it in her eyes-the moment he asked her, they lit up. And she turned it down.

She shook her head, her expression still resolute. "It wouldn't be fair," she said. "Besides..." She shook her head. "He's so far above me right now. What kind of situation would that be, him being this big-shot commander, and me being a fresh-faced recruit? I don't want him to think he's responsible for me. I'll work my way up on my own terms. That way, when we meet again, we'll be equals. And I'll wipe the floor with his face."

Looking at her now, he believed it.

She left the next day. Zack stood outside the door, watching her. Cloud was with him-his friend had come in to ask a question about Fenrir, and was now watching Arielle walk away.

"Aren't you even going to try to stop her?" asked Cloud.

"...Why?" asked Zack, a soft smile coming onto his face as he pushed himself off the wall and turned away from the sight. He began to walk back in side. "It wouldn't do any good. With Ari, sometimes...you just have to learn when to let go."

He glanced back at her. She was confident, her head held high and a smile on her face. She was all grown up now, and he was proud of her.

The big, tearful tackling hug she had given him this morning when she came downstairs would be just have to be their little secret.


	2. NOT AN UPDATE

**Inheritance**

**By:**

**Mystwalker**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Final Fantasy VII. All OCs are mine, though.

**A/N: **Posting this to ask you, the readers, a question.

I have in my mind the idea for a multi-chaptered fic set in the same timeline as _Inheritance_. It would be set from the POV, not of Ari, but of one of her brothers. It would have a lot of OCs (of course) and a rather tricksy love triangle, but I would do everything in my power to make sure none of the characters are Mary Sues. Such fics don't usually do well because the amount of OCs tends to turn people off, and since I write fanfiction for my audience and not simply for myself, I decided to bring the question to you.

Would you be interested in such a fic?

I am insanely busy right now, so it's not likely I would be able to start it until maybe March (or earlier, if the mood strikes me and I have the time), but if you're interested, leave me a review, drop me a PM, do something to let me know you're interested, and if I do write the fic, I'll PM the link to you. And if you're absolutely hating the idea and thinking it will ruin the Another Side universe, let me know that too. _  
_

I don't have the entire plot worked out yet, but what I do know is that the fic in question will entail:

1) A love triangle

2) Politics

3) Turks, to the point where it might read as Turkfic

4) Mystical Cetra mumbo jumbo (It's Zack/Aerith's son, after all).

5) Things going boom!

6) Ari (to a slight extent, at least you'll see what happens to her after she leaves).

And it MIGHT contain:

1) A resolution to the Lucrecia x Vincent x Yuffie question- IF I decided to write this fic, I might decide to close the poll so that I can figure out who ended up with whom.

So yeah, let me know. You're opinion is much appreciated.


End file.
